AMD Radeon R7 Series 240GB SSD Review

AMD and OCZ Partner On SSD Storage

It was only a matter of time before AMD and/or NVIDIA got into the SSD mix and ultimately AMD ended up being the first to slap their Radeon brand on a consumer drive. It makes sense that in doing so, they partnered with an existing SSD maker like they did with their Radeon branded RAM offering. This time the partnership is with OCZ (Toshiba). Ultimately, it’s basically a hybridization of the OCZ Vector 150 and ARC 100 drives with the brains of the operation being the powerful Indilinx Barefoot 3 M00 controller which is paired with Toshiba A19nm MLC NAND. The AMD version is officially named the Radeon R7 and we received the 240GB version to see what it can do but it’s also available in 120GB and 480GB capacities. Obviously, this will appeal the strongest to the AMD faithful but being sourced from OCZ, it has potential to draw in their loyalists as well. Best of all, those wanting a full Radeon themed system have another piece available to complete that quest.

The transparency of this collaboration is refreshing as most times such things are kept under wraps or at least not openly acknowledged. In fact, if you flip the drive over, there lies OCZ’s branding very prominently on the back sticker and OCZ even lists the Radeon R7 drive on their product page. Plus, there’s even a special version of the OCZ Toolbox with the AMD branding and support will be handled through OCZ. Obviously, OCZ is handling most of the heavy lifting in this partnership I’m sure they are betting on the AMD brand to draw in customers. Looking at the specifications, you can see the reads of 550MB/s and writes of 530MB/s are identical to that of the OCZ Vector 150 drive. In fact, many of the specs are the same except for the IOPS which are rated 5,000 less on the writes at 90,000 and the warranty is one year shorter at four years – which is still a year longer than many other drives and likely as a result of the different NAND used.

AMD Radeon R7 SSD Features and Specifications:

PERFORMANCE:

120GB

240GB

480GB

Sequential Read Speed:

550 MB/s

550 MB/s

550 MB/s

Sequential Write Speed:

470 MB/s

530 MB/s

530 MB/s

Random Read Speed(4K, QD32):

85,000 IOPS

95,000 IOPS

100,000 IOPS

Random Write Speed (4K, QD32):

90,000 IOPS

90,000 IOPS

90,000 IOPS

Steady-State Random Write Speed (4K, QD32):

12,000 IOPS

20,000 IOPS

23,000 IOPS

PHYSICAL:

Usable Capacities (IDEMA):

120GB, 240GB, 480GB

NAND Components:

Toshiba A19nm Multi-Level Cell (MLC)

Interface:

Serial ATA (SATA) 6Gb/s (SATA III)

NAND Controller:

OCZ Barefoot 3 M00

Form Factor:

2.5 inch, 7mm height

Dimension (L x W x H):

99.70 x 69.75 x 7.00 mm

Weight:

115g

RELIABILITY / COMPATIBILITY:

Data Path Protection

BCH ECC corrects up to 44 random bits/1KB

MTBF

2.3 million hours

Encryption

256-bit AES-compliant

Product Health Monitoring

Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) Support

Endurance

Rated for 30GB/day of host writes for 4 years under typical client workloads

In addition to the drive and the usual warranty and install guides, the drive comes bundled with a AMD Radeon branded 2.5″ to 3.5″ adapter plate as well as a software key for Acronis True Image HD which also happens to be our preferred imaging tool. Let’s have a closer look.

In fact, I have purchased and been using a
Toshiba external hard drive (like: http://www.icare-recovery.com/howto/toshiba-hard-drive.html)
for the past couple of months. It works well on my Dell laptops and helps me a
lot. But, I still wonder to choose another good portable drive and can take it
as the backup drive. The mentioned SSD could be great choice. Thanks!

Okc Dave

“Best of all, those wanting a full Radeon themed system…”

Really? Best of all? I suspect most of us couldn’t care less about themed systems.

Stop AMD now

AMD solid state drives are dead and it’s never a good idea for AMD to enter into SSD market because they make SSD drives from a stubborn company called, Toshiba. I kept on telling the entire public do not buy any toshiba computers because they are problematic and are poor in quality as well as in brand.

AMD is now cutting jobs so they can reduce product reliability and quality like never before. They are cutting deeply needed jobs as part of AMD’s reorganization plan so they can stop innovating and focus on stuff that’s not needed like Mantle.

DirectX 12 is more reliable, appropriate to use and much powerful than Mantle.

Mantle is a stupid idea to improve on graphics.

I support faster and reliable graphics

Do not buy any gadget with a logo called powered by AMD, their quality is going down.

Diana

Actually, the company making this drive is OCZ. OCZ isn’t Toshiba… it is a Toshiba Group, but they are their still their own company. OCZ used to be a leader in SSDs. The quality of their drives has increased greatly. So, don’t shun AMD for partnering with a leader in quality SSDs. 🙂

I read this review at The Guru of 3D and found that the drive performed extremely well, yet it’s a OCZ SSD been power by Toshiba it’s still good enough for the PowerUser, plus it comes with Software, what more do you want, something better the 540 and 520 read and writes.